404. She Blogged, He Blogged *

***Story update! See footnote below.***

Have you fallen off of the edge of your seat yet?

In the previous post I mentioned in passing that I met a fellow blogger.

Brevity... is Wit's writer Neel. We should all be as fortunate as Brevity and Wit to have Neel as a writer. I, however, did better than both Brevity and Wit, because I spent many hours with this fine blogger robot on Sunday. (Unlike my avatar, Neel's avatar is a surprisingly good representation! Only, he dressed up to meet me. *sigh* He wore a fancy Italian silk tie.)

Neel sans tie

This was Neel's second visit to the Bay Area. I wanted him to have The Bay Area Experience, and you can't have that unless you eat breakfast at one of my favorite joints Rick and Ann's, in Berkeley, avec moi.

I ordered my usual, and introduced Neel to my favorite waitress Brianne. (She always remembers what my usual is.)

The best thing about Rick and Ann's is the long wait to be seated--usually a half hour to an hour wait. After you give your name to the hostess, you go next door to Peet's (a company founded in Berkeley 35 years ago), grab some tea or coffee, find a seat in the courtyard and bask in the glow of the Claremont Resort's shadow.

Tennis anyone?

The wait time is really relaxation-and-conversation time in disguise. Not many people get the wait-time concept. (Not many people get me either, and that's ok.) But Neel is one of those special people who got it. In fact, when the host said that the wait would be an hour, I had to hold Neel back from giving the poor guy a hug. "Neel, he's just doing his job," I said. "We'll leave him an appropriate tip, too."

After a lovely and fun breakfast, I drove Neel to Emeryville's Marina. I love going here when I'm missing my favorite city. (I don't live in San Francisco, because I would never get to see her. She's best admired from the outside looking in.)

Downtown Oakland was our next destination, and we zipped over there into the heart of it. 20 seconds later, I wondered, Where to next? Ah, Grizzly Peak, of course! I just hoped we wouldn't encounter any flirty cyclists. They are so cute annoying.

I don't know if it was the elevation, the view of the Bay and San Francisco, or the beauty of my little car, but Neel seemed a little out of it after we stopped at an outlook to soak in the view.

Same eyes, different outlook

I told him about my Madison trip and the real first names of the wonderful bloggers I met (for example, The Tonya Show's author is Tonya, and By the Seat of My Skirt is written by Moral). He said that he felt faint. Maybe it was fact-shock, learning for the first time that his blog-reads are written by real people and not Rock Stars after all. I don't know though. He wouldn't tell me. He likes to keep us women guessing, I guess.

I gave up guessing, and decided that some chocolate was in order. We drove down to another one of my favorite places, Bittersweet Café in Rockridge. Fortunately for my waistline, I won't be able to show my face there for a few weeks.


Did you know that Neel is quite the talented flirt? He hit on a woman who was holding her infant. Her husband sat right next to her, too! Did this stop Neel from whistling at her? I won't go into details, but let's just say the woman was very flattered and yelled at her husband, "Why don't you whistle and talk to me like that anymore?" The husband left in a huff, and the woman tried to steal my seat. A swift punch made her more concerned about her baby's nose, and she finally left to join her pouty husband.

My cure for the pout.

Neel claimed the whole thing started out as an accident, that his beepy-whistle circuit shorted. "You already said that," I replied. (Maybe he'd forgotten that I sat next to him when he said this to the husband. The woman heard it as compliment number two.)

I'm not sure I believe Neel, I'm inclined to agree with the wife. However, I do forgive Neel for his part in my two-week Bittersweet restraining order. If he wasn't so magnetic and tall I don't think forgiveness would come so easily for me. I have a soft spot for magnetic tall droids, especially magnetic witty gracious tall droids who write well.

-------
*Please visit Neel's site to read his wonderful version of our day's events here.